Apple nicked our name

The only thing that Apple has announced which was new recently has been blasted by an Aussie start-up for nicking its ideas.

When Tim Cook announced the Apple HealthKit application to the great throngs yesterday, it appears that the collective yawn which followed did not drown out the yelp of anger Down-Under

A company called HealthKit took to its Twitter account recently to say that it was “feeling annoyed” over the same-name issue, asking “@tim_cook r u aware of this?”

HealthKit owns both the domain name and the Twitter handle, having existed before Apple introduced its health and fitness-centric utility.

The Aussies apparently were not even approached by the company.

The company’s co-founder Alison Hardacre spoke to the folks at Wired about the matter, saying: “It is very flattering that they (sic) like our name, but I’m a little let down because how hard would it have been to spend five seconds to put HealthKit.com into their browser and find us?”

HealthKit bought its domain name in early 2012.

Actually Apple originally wanted to call its product “HealthBook” and for some reason changed its name at the last minute. “HealthKit” was one of three trademarks that surfaced in trademark applications believed to originate from Apple last month.

So, the only new thing to have come from Apple in the last year or so turns out to have been unoriginal – at least as far as its name is concerned.